The Real Life Diet of Bryson DeChambeau, Who Bulked Up to Boom Long Drives

Golf was one of the first big-time pro sports to return during the coronavirus era, and the inescapable post-quarantine story was Bryson DeChambeau. Specifically, his body: Looking a little bit more like a linebacker than a PGA Tour pro, the 26-year-old was suddenly hitting the absolute bejeezus out of the ball, taking preposterous angles and shaving strokes by hitting long. “Bryson DeChambeau is Breaking Golf" declared one New York Post headline. 

It wasn’t all a quarantine transformation: DeChambeau, currently 7th in the PGA Tour standings, has spent a better part of the past year making gains, adding 20 pounds before the virus pause. But then he used lockdown to add 20 more.

There’s more to golf than just hitting it far, of course, but the Puma-sponsored athlete put the pieces together to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic earlier this month, and he’s considered a top favorite for the stacked run of big tournaments that have been rescheduled to the late summer and fall, including both the U.S. Open and the Masters.  

So DeChambeau is hungry for some big wins in this unconventional season. But he’s also hungry, period. In a recent interview with GQ, DeChambeau discussed his 2,000-calorie breakfasts, impressive protein shake intake, and his indifference to both vegetables and days off from the gym.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and everyone in between about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: Talk to me about what the beginning of your day looks like.

Bryson DeChambeau: I usually wake up between 8 and 10 a.m. and I'll get a pretty healthy breakfast. When I’m up depends on if I'm working out later at night. I'll have four to five eggs with five or six pieces of bacon or sausage. I’ll also have two pieces of toast or a bagel with cream cheese, maybe some grape jelly. It depends on the day, about what I feel like. Then, I’ll have two Orgain protein shakes. The shakes are pre-made, so nothing else in there besides what comes in the bottle. I think they’ve got about 250 calories in each bottle. I don't do any supplements. It's really just these protein shakes and natural food.

That’s a pretty good philosophy.

Yeah, I don’t really calorie count or anything. I would assume that's around 2000 calories. Right after that, if it's my off week, I’ll do a light practice and go to the course for a couple hours. I’ll practice some speed training with my golf swing, trying to get it up as fast as I possibly can. Then, after that I go train, implementing the things I’ve learned from Greg Rospkoff. He's a MAT [muscle activation techniques] specialist. He's taught me a lot about how to take care of the body. I'd normally go see him, but he's in Denver, and that’s not much of an option right now. But, he's given me the knowledge to be able to Band-Aid myself as much as possible when things aren't going the right way. It's all training. No physical therapy. It's all isolating the muscles as possible and training each muscle to function to its highest potential.

What’s a typical week of training look like?

Well, for the most part it's a lot of core stuff, because that’s what’s used the most in golf. You have to be able to use a lot of rotational forces, trunk rotation stuff, trunk flexion, back extension side bend—a lot of those things. Obviously your shoulder joints have to be pretty mobile as well. So, every day there’s a core workout, and then I'll do upper body or lower body. That takes me at least an hour to an hour and a half a day. You know, my gym is in my garage and I don’t have AC in there, so sometimes it takes me some time. I’ll be in there sweating for a while. I have a shirt I’ll wear sometimes when I train, and I’ll know I’m really working hard because if you sweat a certain amount, the Puma emblem shows up out of the shirt. It's almost inspirational. I started out wearing a medium shirt, and now everything I get is an XL.

And you work out every single day?

Yes. No matter what, it's every single day. I don't take days off. I found that when I stopped doing things, my body started to lower its tolerance levels. So for me, it's actually a recovery mechanism and a training mechanism to tell my body, this is the force you need to produce. If I just sit and don't do anything for a couple of days, all of a sudden gravity starts pushing my body down. Then, I can't hold all the forces that I'm producing. Moving regularly helps me put out all of the check engine lights when things come about. When they arise, I can fix them really quickly.

I don’t do physical therapy or massage work. Whenever I’ve tried deep tissue massage things or putting things onto my body or whatever, I felt like I got up off the table worse for it.

Do you eat lunch?

Well, by the time I’m done working out, it’s already around 6:30 p.m. So, I’m ready to eat some dinner. Dinner usually consists of a 2:1 carb to protein ratio. I surprisingly don't eat too many vegetables. I've not really found any benefits from it. I've done blood tests before, and all of my blood results come back normal. So for me, it's a lot of carbs and proteins. I went through a keto diet phase and I lost a lot of weight and muscle strength. I felt like that wasn't the road for me, albeit for some people that absolutely is the road. There's not one way to do one way to do it.

I’ll usually have rice or potatoes, it can be vegetables every once in a while. Then, steak or chicken. I don't really do fish that much.

So you’re really only eating two big meals a day?

Well, I munch on a lot of things, and I’ll probably have about six or seven protein shakes by the time the day’s over. I also have some protein bars around if I need just a couple of them. I'll snack or I'll have a little sugar here and there. You got to enjoy life at some point in time. Right?

What’s the sugar?

I like M&Ms.

Anything else after dinner?

After dinner I'll sit down and enjoy my night. I'll watch Twitch, E-sports, play Fortnite. Then, I'll have a protein shake to finish off tonight. That's usually the last thing I'll do, then go to bed. They’re just so easy to drink, and it’s better than me having a bowl of cereal or something, you know? Then, I'm going to bed around 10 or 10:30, and I try and get as much sleep as possible.

Any other diet hacks we should know about?

I don't drink a lot of alcohol. And I just got this new water machine—a Kangen water machine—that’s a game changer. You can change the pH level from your faucet. Basically, water comes into your house, and you can change the pH from 9.5 all the way to 2.5. It's used for different reasons, but typically a lot of the foods that we have nowadays are super acidic in nature, especially in the American diet, and drinking your water at a certain pH can help balance that out. When I started drinking my water with a pH of 9.5, I immediately had more energy. It’s a different feeling. It's the purest water I've ever had in my entire life. I can actually put pH strips in there to check the pH levels, so I can test it before I even drink it.

Have you always been this curious and into the “why” behind your training and nutrition?

I’ve always been interested in life in general, growing up. I always questioned everything. I didn't have a lot of resources when I was young. I couldn't go down all these roads with these questions that I asked at an early age. But now that I've been able to have some success, I've kinda gotten deep into most of these things and only taken what has added value to me. I'm always trying to add more value to my life in general. I mean, my goal is to live to 130 or 140. I really think that's possible now with today's technology. I think somebody’s going to do it in the next 30 or 40 years. I want humans to be better. I want them to succeed. I want to say, Hey, this is all of the stuff I've experienced that helped me do my best. If it helps you, great. If it doesn't, well, let's keep working on it. Let's keep figuring stuff out. That’s my take on life.

Training to race up Mt. Everest is apparently not so different from prepping for your local half marathon.

Originally Appeared on GQ